David Cook has won the battle of the David’s, defeating David Archuleta to win this year’s American Idol. David Cook was the marginal underdog heading into tonight’s final. Cooks final performance last night fell flat with judges as they gave the entire night to Archuleta as the winner. But the people have spoken and David Cook won Idol by a solid margin of nearly 12 million votes.

American Idol David Hernandez has been the subject of much revelation over the last few days. Here’s an old video of David - which if fortunately not of him stripping in a gay club - instead singing on a cruise ship. Not sure which would be worse.

I swear I can’t remember seeing Amy Davis’ audition, and I’m pretty sure I would have remembered. Based on what I’ve hear I’m not sure we would put her in our Idol Top 12. Blue Bayou? Come on. But she does have her appeal. And bikini pictures of Amy Davis certainly going to hurt her popularity any.

An American Idol Top 24 contestant already has a music video. As a matter of act yes! Here’s Carly Smithson’ video when she went by the name of Carly Hennessy - and put out a record. Smell a new Idol scandal? I guess she already has a real leg up on the competition.

I smell the first scandal of the season brewing. It would seem that Top 24 finalist, Irish singer Carly Smithson already has a CD out. Really. As a matter of fact you can even buy it on iTunes! (
click here). You see Carly Smithson once went by the name Carly Hennessy. And in 2001 put out a record on the MCA label. Aren’t American Idol contestants supposed to be undiscovered?

Yahoo music reports all the details. Here are some excerpts:

Her demo landed in the hands of MCA’s president, who signed Hennessy on the spot to a contract, with the label setting her up to record a debut album. The initial results apparently pleased neither the label or the singer and former New Radical Gregg Alexander came aboard to salvage the project. The resulting album, Ultimate High, finally was issued in late 2001 and received solid reviews. Unfortunately, and despite MCA having reportedly spent in excess of two million dollars on the effort, it failed to dent the exhausted teen market with none of the singles taking off and the album selling in the hundreds as opposed to the hundreds of thousands which would have been necessary for all involved to recoup on their investment.”

“Unfortunately [after she recorded her MCA album], neither Ms. Hennessy nor MCA were happy with the results….MCA decided to rerecord Ms. Hennessy’s album from scratch…In April 2001, with the album still unfinished, MCA decided to try to get Ms. Hennessy some notice by releasing her first single, a bouncy tune called ‘I’m Gonna Blow Your Mind’….MCA spent $250,000 on a video that showed Ms. Hennessy dancing in a disco and jumping around with pals in their sleepwear. On a call-in show, Nickelodeon asked viewers to rate 30 seconds of the video, but the audience was unresponsive. The video was quickly shelved.”

So just what does all this mean? Well first you’ve got to figure that FOX knows that Carly Smithson was Carly Hennessy. They’re not stupid. I’m sure they are very aware that she had a previous singing career and recorded a record already. But isn’t that the whole point of American Idol? To get a ‘first’ contract for a new talent? So by leaving Carly in the competition, and failing to mention her previous accomplishments does it equate to some kind of ‘fixing’? Is FOX trying to assure they have real star power reach the finals?

And if FOX were to disqualify Carly Hennessy, who would they bring back from Hollywood week? Perhaps an open door to early teen favorite Josiah Leming?

Get Carly Hennessy’s album:

Well, here it is, the Idol ‘Top 24′. We were actually not surprised to see the early popular favorite Josiah Leming hit the road. Wise cut in our opinion. Stay tuned for our Idol predictions for Week 1 of the competition. So away we go with Season 7 of American Idol and the Top 24 contestants are:
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Singing Blue Bayou Amy Davis didn’t blow the judges away, but they gave her a ticket to Hollywood. We thought a little higher of her audition. Keep your eye’s on Amy over the next few weeks.

Cardin Lee McKinney makes through despite being branded as a ‘theatrical singer’ by Simon and a no vote.. Learn more at Cardin’ MySpace page.

Chikezie Eze the guy with the cool name. A second audition for Chikezie proved he had the skills. belting out a Luther Vandross tune. Simon seemed unconvinced but Randy and Paula put him through.

Chikezie Eze

Good night of auditions in Atlanta Georgia. Several standout singers - for reasons than just their singing. Josiah Lemming’s heartbreak story of living out his car. Here’s Josiah’s audition clip:

Part-time nurse part-time rocker Amanda Overmyer impressed with some Janice Joplin.

Here’s a video clip of Kellie Pickler’s appearance on the show Are you Smarter Than a Fifth Grader. Clearly Kellie is not, and, what do you know, Europe is an actual country? Enjoy the classic Kellie Pickler answers. Can she really be this dumb?

Clearly a standout on tonight’s American Idol auditions in Texas was native Kady Malloy. First doing her impression of Britney Spears - which actually impressed the judges (hard to imagine Britney Spears impressing anyone these days), she then blew them away with a solid real audition. Interesting spelling of Kady too. She’s got the look. We’ll see if Kady Malloy can make it through Hollywood to this year’s top 24. Video of Kady’s great audition above.